The "Loud Bitch" Endurance Racing in 2016

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One of the first stories I wrote for EatSleepRide was about the “Loud Bitch”. The “Loud Bitch” is a Honda CBR250R that five motorcycle road riders bought to do endurance racing with S.O.A.R. in Ontario. Of the five, only two of the riders were real road racers. The remaining three were street riders who were interested in some fun on a motorcycle.

Why is it the “Loud Bitch”? The bike we bought had already been converted for racing and had a flow through aftermarket exhaust that made the bike one of the loudest bikes in the race. One of our competitors told us at the very first race “you better do something about the noise out of that loud bitch as it hurts my ears when I pass you”. From then on, it was the Loud Bitch.

The SOAR Endurance races include three classes. Each class is displacement based. Our GTL class runs the smallest displacement bikes. We race our 250cc CBR against 85cc to 500cc bikes. The other two classes include 600cc sport bikes and 1000cc superbikes. The three classes all run together on the track but are scored separately. Some of the big bike class motorcycles blow past our little 250 every few laps. Lapping our little CBR on a regular basis as you would expect them to with anywhere from 75 HP to 120 HP advantage.

For the 2016 race season, we replaced the original crashed on race bodywork with a new set. A few of the race kits from the CSBK National series were still available. We bought one of the race kits from the Honda CBR 250 series and used the new bodywork. Our team Sponsor (BikeLawyer.CA) helped cover most of the cost. Thanks Tim. We also switched to a new set of ‘DOT’ street and racing treaded tires. Bridgestone had just introduced a new tire that race tire vender (Wayne Kennedy) mounted up for us. We loved the Bridgestone RS10s as soon as we rode on them. We also decided that the stock Honda front brake master cylinder was really not up to race conditions. So we replaced it with a Brembo radial master cylinder. This kind of brake upgrade makes sense for race bikes as well as street bikes. Now we had serious one finger braking with no late race fade.

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The first season, we had fun and finished second overall in the GTL class. Last year we won the SOAR GTL class. The 5 ‘amigos’ from the first year have changed. We aren’t “those five old guys” anymore. We replaced two ‘retirees’ with two younger guys who had become discouraged with racing in the 600cc sport bike class. In a perfect world, younger faster riders should improve our lap times and help us win.

We did a normal service with fresh oil in the engine and front forks. The drive system was treated to a new rear sprocket and DID gold chain.

Our 2016 season got off to a bad start when we missed the first race event. Five team members and all of us with prior commitments that weekend. The second race of the season proved to be a real ‘eye opener’ for us. After two seasons of racing with equal competition, we discovered that there were some new GTL teams entering the class for 2016. Teams that brought equal or better equipment and faster riders. We could still run in the top 3 each event. However, we only won one of the six 2016 endurance races.

Fortunately, the other teams in our GTL class were fast but inconsistent. Seems that some of the other teams couldn’t come to all of the events. Some of the teams didn’t like racing in the rain and one of the teams could not get their PRO Superbike riders to ride for them for every race. Most of the races over the season were close. The GTL endurance points spread was close through the whole season. To win the championship, our team had to ride well and not crash in the last race. That race was in October, so we expected it to be cold and wet. We weren’t disappointed. Riding in a soaking wet leather suit, boots and gloves with a partially fogged up helmet visor isn’t all that much fun. We placed second to Team Mills who included two Pro Superbike riders.

I like to remind people that the GTL class bikes were often in the top five overall in the endurance races. Our little bikes often beating many of the teams with bigger bikes. At the September race, GTL bikes were 5th, 8th, 9th and 10th overall.

At the end of the 2016 racing season, our team: BikeLawyer.ca AKA the “Loud Bitch” was first overall in the SOAR GTL Endurance racing class. We ended up 33 points ahead of our nearest rivals. .